Girls leaving primary school in inner London outperformed children from every other part of the country in their exam results, new figures reveal.
An outstanding 75 per cent of girls passed reading, writing and maths SATs in inner London boroughs this year, meaning they mastered the three Rs.
This is the highest result for any group in England.
Boys in inner London also did better than boys in any other area, with 67 per cent passing all three tests.
The top performing primary schools in London
These are the nine primary schools in London scoring 100 per cent, ranked according to the number who passed reading, writing and maths SATs:
Hampstead Parochial CofE, Camden
Our Lady of Victories Catholic, Wandsworth
Riverside, Southwark
Sir William Burrough, Tower Hamlets
St John and St James CofE, Hackney
St Peter’s, Hammersmith and Fulham
The Cathedral School of St Saviour and St Mary Overy, Southwark
The London Oratory School,
Hammersmith and Fulham
Trinity St Mary’s CofE, Wandsworth
The combined boys’ and girls’ results mean pupils in inner London easily outclassed children in the rest of the country, with outer London just behind.
London as a whole continues to excel, with 70 per cent of pupils passing all their tests compared with the national average of 65 per cent. This is an increase for London of four percentage points on last year.
The figures released by the department for education also reveal:
More than 12,000 London children - or 13 per cent - reached the higher standard in all three subjects. This is the best result in the country.
26 London Local Authorities have no underperforming schools - an improvement on 24 last year.
Just eight London schools did not reach the government’s floor standard, putting them at risk of being branded failing.
18 London schools were defined as “coasting” - five in inner London and 13 in outer London. This equates to 1 per cent of all London schools, which is the lowest percentage in the country.
Nationally, the percentage of children leaving primary school with a good grounding in the three Rs also increased. Sixty-four per cent of 11-year-olds who took SATs this year passed all three tests.
This is up from 61 per cent last year.
Overall, the number of schools considered to be under-performing has decreased, but 364 mainstream primaries in England still fell below the primary school floor standard.
A school is below the “floor” if fewer than 65 per cent of pupils meet the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, or if they do not make enough progress.
A spokesman for the department for education said the data shows the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is narrowing. The gap has closed by 13 per cent since 2001, and three per cent in the last year.
But further analysis by the BBC suggests if the slow pace of change remains the same, it will take 50 years to close the attainment gap, and poor pupils will not catch up until 2070.
This year, 51 per cent of the poorest pupils reached the expected level in their SATs, compared with 70 per cent of their better-off peers, leaving a gap of 19 percentage points.
School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said: “Standards are rising in our schools, with 86 per cent of schools now rated good or outstanding as of August 2018, compared to 68 per cent in 2010 and these statistics show that the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has closed by 13 per cent since 2011.
“Every child, regardless of their background, deserves a high quality education and opportunity to fulfil their potential.
"Headteachers are using the freedoms afforded by academy and free school status to make this a reality, as illustrated by the progress disadvantaged pupils in multi-academy trusts are making in writing and maths.”
Political reporter(wp/Reuters): Britain’s government is not preparing for a second referendum on Brexit, ministers said on Sunday, sticking to the script that Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal could still pass through parliament with a few changes. May delayed a vote last week on her agreement to leave the European Union because she was set to lose in parliament and has tried to secure “assurances” from the bloc to try to better sell it to sceptical lawmakers. Brussels said last week it was ready to help but warned her that she could not renegotiate the deal.
With less than four months before Britain is due to leave in March, Brexit, the biggest shift in trade and foreign policy for more than 40 years, is proving anything but smooth, complicated by the deep divisions in parliament and across the country.
With May facing deadlock in parliament over the deal and the EU offering little so far, more politicians are talking about the possibility of Britain leaving without an agreement or a second referendum that could stop Brexit from happening.
Asked if the government was preparing for a vote, education minister Damian Hinds told Sky News: “No, a second referendum would be divisive. We’ve had the people’s vote, we’ve had the referendum and now we’ve got to get on with implementing it.”
Trade minister Liam Fox also said a second referendum would “perpetuate” the deep divisions in Britain, adding that the prime minister was securing the necessary assurances to persuade parliament to back her deal.
He said that would take some time.
“It will happen over Christmas, it’s not going to happen this week, it’s not going to be quick, it will happen some time in the New Year,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.
But the longer it takes, voices urging a change of tack are getting louder and the pressure on the main opposition Labour Party to move against the government is rising.
May survived a no confidence vote among her Conservative lawmakers last week, but opposition parties are calling for Labour to propose a parliamentary motion of no confidence against the government this week.
Labour has repeatedly said it will call such a motion at “the best time”, or when it knows it can win, and for now will try to force the government to bring its deal to parliament sooner.
Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s policy chief for communities and local government, said: “We will be using whatever mechanisms we have at our disposal next week to try and force the government to bring forward that deal for a vote before
British Prime minister Teresa May take a faulty odd decession which will take to UK as alone country across the europe.
people of UK are protesting for this odd decission,but she want to alone her country from european union..UK will suffer for her strict odd decession later on..in business,education and all co-operation with EU and UK is 0 level from brexit effect.
we hope british prime minister will understand they matter of UK..how this country goes alone..how this country and its people effected for odd decission and she take decission again to join EU for greater intrest of British people.
A desperate worldwide hunt is on for a rare blood match with a two-year-old girl who has an aggressive form of cancer.
The girl, Zainab Mughal, has an extremely rare blood type and needs donors to sustain her long-term treatment.
Zainab, from Florida, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma two months ago.
While three donors have been located – including one in the UK – at least seven more volunteers are desperately needed for Zainab’s blood transfusions going forward. More than 1,000 local samples have been taken, but to no avail.
Raheel Mughal, Zainab’s father, said of the diagnosis: “We were all crying. This was like the worst thing we were expecting.”
Zainab’s blood is extremely rare because she is missing a common antigen, “Indian B”, that most people carry in their red blood cells.
For a person to be a possible match with Zainab, they must also be missing the Indian B antigen, otherwise the little girl's body will reject the blood.
The only people who are likely to be a match for Zainab are people of exclusively Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent. Of these populations, less than four per cent of the people are actually missing the Indian B antigen. Additionally, they must also have the blood type "O" or "A".
Mr Mughal added: “We will definitely need more blood. If you are one of those people from the Middle East, please go out and donate the blood for my daughter.
“Once my daughter grows, I am going to remind her of the efforts to save her life when she was a child.”
The search is being led by the OneBlood charity. For more information, visit oneblood.org/zainab
An eight-year-old girl and a woman have died following a house fire in Nottinghamshire.
Emergency services scrambled to the scene at around 7am on Saturday after reports of a blaze at a property in Woodhill Road, Collingham.
Nottinghamshire Police said five people, believed to be members of the same family, were removed from the building.
The young girl died along with a woman, 33, after the incident.
A five-year-old boy and a 34-year-old man remain in hospital with serious injuries.
A 53-year-old woman was led to safety and treated at the scene.
The fire was brought under control and a joint investigation has been launched by Nottinghamshire Police and Fire and Rescue.
Area Chief Inspector Rich Stapleford said: “This morning our Fire and Rescue colleagues were able to remove five people from a property affected by fire.
“Ambulance crews were on scene and provided emergency care at the scene and on route to hospital.
“Despite their best efforts it is with sadness that I confirm a girl aged eight and a woman aged 33 have died following the incident.
“A five-year-old boy and a 34-year-old man remain in hospital with serious injuries.
“A 53-year-old woman was lead to safety and looked after at the scene.
“It is believed that all five people were members of the same family.
“The fire was brought under control and a joint Fire and Police investigation is taking place to establish a cause.
“Collingham is a very close knit community and this includes some of the fire crews who responded. I know this news will hit the village very hard indeed. I speak on behalf of all the emergency services who were in attendance when I say our thoughts are with the victims, their families, friends and the community of Collingham at this difficult time.”
If you have any information call Nottinghamshire Police on 101 quoting incident number 189 of 15 December 2018.
A British court ruled on Friday that the country’s competition regulator treated Sainsbury’s (SBRY.L) and takeover target Asda unfairly in not allowing the supermarket groups more time to respond to evidence submitted as part of a probe of their deal.
Sainsbury’s agreed a 7.3 billion-pound takeover of Walmart-owned (WMT.N) Asda in April and the deal is being probed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
On Wednesday the two companies said they would apply to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) for a judicial review of the CMA’s phase two investigation of the deal, which started in September.
Sainsbury’s and Asda had asked the CMA for an extra 11 working days over the Christmas period to respond to a large amount of evidence material recently provided to them, but the CMA had declined the request.
Sainsbury’s and Asda said the CAT ruled on Friday that the timetables for responding to the materials and attending a hearing were unfair.
But the tribunal did not rule on the number of extra days Sainsbury’s and Asda should have, a CMA spokeswoman said, adding the court had not agreed with the Jan. 4 date sought by the companies.
The tribunal instead decided it was up to the competition regulator to decide how much more time the companies should have to respond, the spokeswoman said.
“The CMA will now consider how much more time to give the parties,” she said.
Sainsbury’s and Asda said in a joint statement they “took this step reluctantly and look forward to re-engaging with the CMA and Panel and working constructively with them going forward.”
